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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 07:22 PM
  #21
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Originally Posted by Yaowen View Post
When is seeing complexity and depth a virtue and not just a cop out? And are there not reasons to not just assume that an attitude is a cop out because of a flaw in character and pure malice? Perhaps the phenomena of "cop outs" are also complex.
Or perhaps I am just wrong about these things? Can anyone identify with this?

I view seeing complexity and depth as definitely a virtue - gaining some insight as to the behavior and functioning of the people one comes into contact with, allows me to better understand and deal with them, along with ultimately better understanding how I act & react to such encounters.

To me, many (if not most) things fall into a spectrum - shades of gray, rather than pure black & white/right or wrong. I find this essential to dealing with both others and my own behavior, along with allowing my own & others perceived sins or wrongdoings to be handled with forgiveness & understanding. I don't view it as a cop-out, but more as educated fence-sitting.

I've dealt with bullying and discrimination at various points in my life & whilst I'll admit still having feelings of resentment to those that hurt me, this fence-sitting or seeing things from both sides has allowed me to deal with the scars in something of a manageable way and avoid fixated thinking & rumination.
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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 07:37 PM
  #22
It's hard not to respond to hurt with hurt. To look for a reason and something to blame when you're hurt. Not everyone interacts with the world in the same way. I try to keep in mind that everyone has their own way of doing things and hurt isnt always on purpose
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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 09:08 PM
  #23
I don’t think either malice nor goodness exist. For me these are only moral concepts to try to named what is against or for the adaptation to social groups for the sake of its functioning.

As animals, we are born just like that animals. Are animals good or bad? No. They behave and do what it’s needed to go on living, to accomplish the nature purpose of the species perpetuation. That’s it.
Is a female praying mantis evil because during the intercourse with the male, that one beheads the male with the purpose of the death rattles his sexual member speed the production of his sperm.
Is the male good for that sacrificed?
They are working on a superior purpose. Reproduction and perpetuation of the specie.

A child is born with this same command. As beings with a developed brain from the first instant of our birth we are subjects of many changes, influences, outside strengths, models, etc. And this is what shaped the way we are gonna accomplish our main purpose.
It has been decided that the desirable way for us to get the main purpose is to cooperate with the group. That’s why we try to comply rules and laws we ourselves have given us.

Evil is considered the one who goes again this cooperation and conversely, a good person is the one who is considered to work for this cooperation.
But, again, these are only concepts we have created at the service of the great purpose.

I know it’s a cold view, but I can’t avoid to see this topic like this. It’s a personal view, of course and maybe simplistic and even wrong.
My two cents.

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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 10:04 PM
  #24
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I don’t think either malice nor goodness exist. For me these are only moral concepts to try to named what is against or for the adaptation to social groups for the sake of its functioning.

People aren't bugs, people have intent and malice is the intent to do harm. There are people who do harm, not from a survival instinct or to follow some genetic mandate, but simply to hurt for the sake of hurting.
It's important to recognize these malicious intents in people so they can be defended against and avoided.

There are also people who can cause hurt from ignorance or thoughtless or carelessness, people who don't intend on hurting people but do anyway. These people can be taught and reasoned with and usually appreciate the opportunity to grow.

But malice is all too real
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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 10:10 PM
  #25
I also disagree that we are like animals (although I agree that because someone is murdered, it doesn't make them a good person). There may be complex reasons people kill, but if we say that there are no bad people, are you saying we shouldn't have a criminal justice system at all? And that people should be just allowed to harm and kill others with no consequences? That is the way they do it in the animal kingdom...
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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 10:34 PM
  #26
That’s why we have rules, laws and punishments.
To set apart from the group those who for several circumstances don’t comply what we have decided is the best way to accomplish the main purpose of any living creature. Those who commit crimes chose another path to accomplish the main command. Why? For many factors: abandonment, bad models, genetic flaws, you name it.

Why people commit crimes? We tend to think that there must be all kinds of causes when in reality there are only a few ones. And it has been being the same since ancients times. That is, sex, greed, revenge. Sometimes also for severe mental illness ( many few cases, and mainly for self-protection).
What do these causes obey to?

What we call malice is selfishness, greed, control on what they consider their man or their woman).

Malice or goodness are human constructs.

What about goodness? Why people is considered by others good?

P.S. It would be astonish how much we have in common with a bug, a rodent, a virus.

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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 10:43 PM
  #27
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I also disagree that we are like animals (although I agree that because someone is murdered, it doesn't make them a good person). There may be complex reasons people kill, but if we say that there are no bad people, are you saying we shouldn't have a criminal justice system at all? And that people should be just allowed to harm and kill others with no consequences? That is the way they do it in the animal kingdom...
Where did I said that people should be allowed to kill or rape, or rob?
We chose rules and laws for that. And prison, and even the capital penalty.
Monkeys also have rules. They also chose to live in paws for the sake of the specie. They had the skill to chose because as I mentioned at the beginning of my first message here, they also have a more developed brain than a worm, for example.

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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 10:56 PM
  #28
@AzulOscuro I disagree with what you're saying, but maybe the language barrier is also an issue. So I won't say anything else.
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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 11:02 PM
  #29
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Malice or goodness are human constructs.
A banjo is a human construct, that doesn't make it hurt any less if you get hit with one. Human construct can be as real as any natural construct.

I'm not sure I understand what exactly it is you're arguing, you seem to be in favor of the rule of law that dictates and punishes egregious human behavior, but also are arguing that such behavior is simply people exercising their nature. Do you believe that people can choose to go against their nature, and choose to reject acts that might cause harm to another?
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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 11:04 PM
  #30
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A banjo is a human construct, that doesn't make it hurt any less if you get hit with one. Human construct can be as real as any natural construct.

I'm not sure I understand what exactly it is you're arguing, you seem to be in favor of the rule of law that dictates and punishes egregious human behavior, but also are arguing that such behavior is simply people exercising their nature. Do you believe that people can choose to go against their nature, and choose to reject acts that might cause harm to another?
I don't understand what you're saying either.
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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 11:19 PM
  #31
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@AzulOscuro I disagree with what you're saying, but maybe the language barrier is also an issue. So I won't say anything else.
And I love you disagree but which language barrier are you referring too? Isn’t it my English clear? What you or I didn’t understand well?
If you would point it to me, maybe I could clarify it.

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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 11:23 PM
  #32
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A banjo is a human construct, that doesn't make it hurt any less if you get hit with one. Human construct can be as real as any natural construct.

I'm not sure I understand what exactly it is you're arguing, you seem to be in favor of the rule of law that dictates and punishes egregious human behavior, but also are arguing that such behavior is simply people exercising their nature. Do you believe that people can choose to go against their nature, and choose to reject acts that might cause harm to another?
I’m nothing but expressing my opinion. I’m not arguing. This word “argue” was added by your head alone.

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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 11:32 PM
  #33
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I’m nothing but expressing my opinion. I’m not arguing. This word “argue” was added by your head alone.
In English, the word argue does not always mean disagreement. It means stating your point. A synonym for argue in this case would be assert.
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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 11:32 PM
  #34
A side note for @OafFish, Buddhism understood very well the connection between all living creatures with the belief of reincarnation. That, said aside, I don’t believe.
But, what if on my next reincarnation I’m a dung beetle, lol!

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Last edited by AzulOscuro; Jul 27, 2022 at 11:47 PM..
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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 11:44 PM
  #35
I want to apologise to Yaowen for what I’m gonna say now.
It’s clear many times here can’t have and defend your own ideas without being criticise for my English or seeing bad intentions (arguing) when I only try to expose my view.
I don’t care if you have another vision. Only I may care to listen and maybe reconsider my view.

You may disagree 100 thousands of times but there’s a long distance between this and introduce non needed comments that for the most part are wrong.

People can’t feel free if it only counts what the person on the other line wants to listen what they like to listen.
I see this so meaningless.
For respect to you @Yaowen, I’m not gonna write more here, but only for respect to your thread.
I will go on having my views and defending my right to say them.

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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 11:52 PM
  #36
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In English, the word argue does not always mean disagreement. It means stating your point. A synonym for argue in this case would be assert.
Yes, I know. But the context in which the word was presented either means (discuss) or the context or the message conveyed has no sense, because it’s supposed that I’m allowed to argue and reply to defend my argument.

Ironical (I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to argue with arguments (my own arguments) to a post by a user.

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Default Jul 27, 2022 at 11:55 PM
  #37
And I’m not gonna say anything else. Because this last posts have nothing to do with what @Yaowen wants to treat.
Or maybe it has to do. But, I let it for you, girls.

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Default Jul 28, 2022 at 04:26 PM
  #38
You all raise so many good points.

I tend to think and this is just me, that concepts like good and evil, and true and false are things that in one form or another cannot be gotten rid of without involving us in self-contradiction.

For example, if someone were to make the statement: "truth does not exist" I think one would only make such a statement if he or she believed that this statement was true and something important.

But if the statement "truth does not exist" is true then it seems that one has ended up with truth again. Otherwise it is like saying "truth does not exist" but this isn't true or important.

So it seems self-contradictory to me like saying "truth does not exist" and this statement is both important and true and yet it is simultaneously false and unimportant.

Someone once said to me: Nothing in reality, no law of reality is permanent. Everything is temporary and changeable.

So I asked that person: "If nothing is permanent, what about the law that nothing is permanent? Is that law permanent? If it is, then something is permanent, namely that law. If that law is not permanent then there could be permanent things since the law of impermanence is not itself permanent.

This line of thought seems to me to go with concepts of good and evil.

If say, an evolutionary biologist were to say to me that there is no good and evil and that these are social constructs produced through evolution, then I would ask the evolutionary biologist: "Is your theory of evolution true? Is your theory of evolution something good?

If he or she says it isn't true and isn't something good then I feel I could ignore him or her. If he or she says that this theory of evolution is something definitely true and of value then I say: "well, then it seems there is something like good and bad, true and false.

I had a professor of philosophy in graduate school who taught that everything is relative including morality and law.

So one day I decided to do something a little bit naughty. When I went to his class, I sat in his seat at the big desk in front of the class. When he arrived, he said to me, "you can't sit there, that is my seat." So I said, if all morality and law is relative, from my point of view that seat is mine. And he argued and argued with me and eventually said: Well, something things are just right and some things are just wrong.

I have found that most people seem to discover the non-relativity of morality when they are wronged in some way, even professors of ethics in university graduate schools.

Now there have been philosophers who tried to get rid of the concepts of good and evil, but so far at least, I have found that they usually find a way to smuggle the concepts back into their thinking, often under disguise.

Someone might say I don't believe in good and evil but I believe certain things are useful, say or certain things are helpful. But then I can ask, do you think that being useful is a good thing or a bad thing?

This is a bit different I think than speaking about the objective and subjective poles of morality. If a much stronger person forces me to do something bad by overpowering my strength, objectively I am a cause of what results from this. But subjectively I am not guilty because I was coerced beyond my strength to resist. I was forced. This was what I was trying to get at in my original post.

Sorry if I caused any needless misunderstanding and strife here.
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Default Jul 28, 2022 at 04:38 PM
  #39
Thanks for that @Yaowen

You know some people who say there is no good or evil use that stance to absolve themselves when they harm others.

Possible trigger:
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